Lab-on-a-chip: conducting lab analysis on micro- or nanoscale

Animal testing has been involved in scientific research for ages. However, there is still a heavy ongoing debate about animal testing. For a long time there haven’t been any sufficient alternatives. When medication needs to be tested scientists need a complicated physiological system to analyze the effect of the substance. Testing on people can only be done in the late clinical stages of medical tests. In vitro testing is usually only useful in the earliest developing stages of a medicine. For the first time, a real alternative for animal testing is offered by lab-on-a-chip. Lab-on-a-chip is a biological system on micro scale and offers loads of possibilities to examine the chemical effects of molecules on a system in a very precise manner.

The application of lab-on-a-chip technology in the medical world

Lab-on-a-chip technology is not only being used for scientific analysis anymore. Although the technique was implemented first by scientists, the medical world has also discovered the conveniences of lab-on-a-chip. For example, lab-on-a-chip is saving doctors and analysts loads of time. Thanks to this new technique the analysis of DNA can nowadays be done in a couple of minutes. This makes a huge difference for medical procedures as DNA analysis used to cost up to three days before results came back when this type of technology had not yet been implemented.

The benefits of Micro-electro-mechanical systems

Lab-on-a-chip offers many new possibilities for both scientists and the medical world. Micro-electro-mechanical systems have a lot of potential for biological testing because of their many unique advantages, such as:

Alternative for animal testing

Low consumption of fluids

Faster analysis and response times

If you would like to learn more about the possibilities of micro-electro-mechanical systems, you can have a look online for more information.